


Tell Me On a Sunday

by kitnkabootle



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 07:22:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/884549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitnkabootle/pseuds/kitnkabootle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miranda has had a lot of disappointments in her life, and none of them have ever gone according to plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Me On a Sunday

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Based on the song “Tell Me On A Sunday” by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It seemed to me that Miranda likes to control every aspect of her life, and that she would want to control even the demises of her relationships. But sadly, that isn’t always in our control. This is silly drabble that just came out of me when I was listening to the song, so I am warning you – it’s not exactly a primed – well thought out piece of work. Thanks for reading though, if you do!

 

\-----

**_Don't write a letter when you want to leave_ **

**_Don't call me at_ ** **_3 a.m._ ** **_from a friend's apartment_ **

**_I'd like to choose how I hear the news_ **

**_Take me to a park that's covered with trees_ **

**_Tell me on a Sunday please_ **

 

It is three weeks before graduation and Miriam is the happiest she has ever been. She has high hopes for the future and has been accepted at three colleges on full scholarship. She is dating the head of the football team and she is the envy of her fellow classmates.

It’s the last 10 minutes of History class when Miriam is passed a note from her friend Melanie, three desks away and she unfolds the paper carefully. She un-crinkles its corners, just beneath the lip of the desk and safely out of view from Mr. Gregory.  It isn’t a long note. In fact, it only contains a short, misspelled sentence written in bubbly girlish writing scrawled across its middle.

_I hear Sean rented a hotel room for prom._

Miriam feels her cheeks growing red, despite her greater attempts at feigning indifference. She looks up to see Melanie smiling at her knowingly. Then Melanie blows her an exuberant fake kiss and turns around in her seat. The bell rings and Miriam tucks the note into her text book.

 

\---

 

It is the night of the prom. Miriam is dressed in a gown she made herself out of fabric she found at the Salvation Army. She knows the other girl’s dresses are nicer and that they’ve all come from proper stores or dressmakers. But despite her own fears, she has been told she looks wonderful and her classmates have even honored her with the title of Prom Queen.

She has never been happier.

As the night comes to a close, Sean takes her by the waist and draws her close on the dance floor. He whispers into her ear “Let’s go.”

Miriam feels that familiar rush of color to her cheeks but when she looks him in the eyes he smiles kindly at her and she can’t find a reason to decline.

She’s already told her mother that she is spending the night at Sarah’s house although it isn’t as if her mother will noticed her absence anyways.

He takes her hand and they disappear out the gymnasium doors.

 

\---

 

They are lying in bed and Miriam remains very still as Sean rolls off of her.

She always thought that it would be a much more pleasurable experience. The way the girls talked about in gym class, she thought that she would walk away a changed woman. She doesn’t feel any different, excepting the dull throb from the brief encounter with the foreign presence between her legs.

But that too is gone when he climbs out of the bed and begins putting his tousled suit back on. Miriam clutches the sheets across her small breasts, shielding them modestly even though he’s already seen them.

It feels awkward.

“Where are you going?” She asks, and suddenly she feels a prickle of regret creeping along the base of her skull.

“Home.” He replies, though he isn’t looking at her.

“Oh…” She intones, unsure of what else to say.

There is a drawn out silence between them and Miriam distracts herself by pulling her white blond hair into a low pony tail. Sean doesn’t bother doing up his tie and he shoves his hands into his pockets as he finally makes eye contact with her.

“So…” Miriam says, and she isn’t sure why she does.

There is a knock at the door and then a rattling and Miriam only has time to clutch the sheet closer to her chest as the door swings open. Five boys from the football team come barreling through the door, laughing and clapping hands with Sean, whose cheeks are bright red as he tries to participate in the fun at Miriam’s expense.

Miriam feels tears forming inside her piercing blue eyes and as she tries to get to her feet, one boy reaches forward and captures the material in his hand, pulling it away from her naked body. She desperately snatches it back but not before the drooling males get an eyeful and begin a second round of ‘high-fives’.

Sean claps the boys on the back and soon they head out the motel room door, leaving Miriam and Sean alone again as their sneers and laughter become a faint memory. Miriam is trembling as she quickly steps back into her gown, forgetting underclothes in her haste to be covered.

Sean looks ashamed and his voice is incredibly soft. “It’s… uhh.. it’s not gonna work.”

Miriam isn’t sure why that comes as a surprise, but for some reason it does and she feels her lip quivering unattractively. She gathers her hand bag and pushes by Sean as she runs out of the room, leaving her undergarments and her unblemished youth behind.

 

\---

The day after she has her hard earned diploma in her hand, she is on a plane to America and she will never think of high school, proms or Sean Fulton again.

 

**_Let me down easy_ **

**_No big song and dance_ **

**_No long faces, no long looks_ **

**_No deep conversation_ **

**_I know the way we should spend that day_ **

**_Take me to a zoo that's got chimpanzees_ **

**_Tell me on a Sunday please_ **

 

Miranda is at a ball being thrown in her honor to celebrate her promotion to Editor-in-Chief of Runway magazine. She is dressed in an original Chanel gown, her very first to match the very first time in her life that she is the center of attention in a positive way.

Her blond hair is styled elegantly and her lips are painted the most flattering shade of red. The dress clings to her hips a little too snugly perhaps, straining over the swollen area at her midsection. She is three months pregnant and she is already showing. She worries it might be twins, though the ultrasound is inconclusive.

She is waiting for her husband Alan to arrive, and she scans the room around the sea of bodies littering the large ballroom floor.

Finally, he appears at the far exit and they make eye contact briefly. He doesn’t look happy and Miranda isn’t exactly surprised. She has been working 16 hour days for the weeks leading up to her promotion and she has barely had time to say ‘Good morning’ or ‘Good night’ since the rat-race began.

Alan’s lips are pressed together in a firm line and Miranda crosses to him once he’s within distance and leans in to place a kiss on his cheek. He pulls away from it and Miranda’s eyes flick to her left and right to make sure that no one has seen the open rejection.

She is relieved to find that the attention is, for a moment, diverted elsewhere.

“Miranda… we need to talk.”

Miranda nods her head and smiles, more for the people around them then for her husband. “Can’t we do that later this evening darling?”

“No.” Alan replies and Miranda’s nose thins as her own frustration begins to show. She attempts to take him by the elbow, to lead him into a quiet, less public area to speak, but his feet remain firmly planted beneath him.

“Miranda… it’s over.” And it’s out. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Miranda’s eyes widen in surprise. She is blind-sided. She has not been expecting this. She is starting a new position, she is successful and she is carrying his child… perhaps children. But these little facts don’t seem to make a difference as Alan looks at her with an expression of severity coupled with an underlying sense of defeat. She tries to find words but none come.

“It’s over Miranda. I will have my lawyer draw up the papers on Monday. I’m sorry.”

Miranda can’t feel her tongue and she certainly doesn’t give it the direction to form her following question. “Is there someone else?” She can’t quite understand where the question has come from because she’s never suspected her husband of infidelity before. She’s smelled perfume on his collar, but she’s never thought much about it and he’s never given her reasons to question. But this has come so far out of the blue that she can barely grasp it’s reality.

The silence swells between them and suddenly it is as if they are alone in their apartment.

“Yes.” He replies, and then he is gone, swallowed up by the party guests that have suddenly reappeared around them.

Miranda pulls her lips up at the corner and forces a smile that has not quite been perfected, just in time for a series of flashes aimed distinctly in her direction.

 

**_Don't want to know who's to blame_ **

**_It won't help knowing_ **

**_Don't want to fight day and night_ **

**_Bad enough you're going_ **

 

It’s her third anniversary, the girls are at their grandparents and she and Mark will have the house to themselves.

She places her Gucci bag upon the entrance way table and tosses her keys inside. She has enjoyed taking the Porsche out for a run of the city. She is so accustom to being driven everywhere that when the opportunity arises, she grabs hold of it and slides easily into the driver’s seat.

She is successful, she has two eight year old girls who love her and forgive her, her shortcomings and she has a man who has been extremely patient with her.

Her heels click against the hardwood floor as she makes her way down the hall. A delighted smile spreads across her lips as she smells the dinner that her chef has been preparing for the evening. It is set out on the dining room table, there are two candles lit and a bottle of fine champagne cools in a bucket of ice at one corner.

She crosses into the dining room, expecting to see Mark, but she is surprised to find she is alone. She approaches the table and looks from her place sitting to his. A square piece of paper is sitting in the middle of his empty plate. She raises an eyebrow in curiosity and she wonders if it might be ‘directions’ to the bedroom or something else that Mark has decided to surprise her with.

A smile graces her lips, the umpteenth one of the day, and she picks up the paper unfolding it quickly. She can’t remember the last time she’s felt like a young girl, excited about spending an evening alone with her lover.

Miranda’s eyes scan the paper several times. She closes it and looks around the room before opening it again to reread it. Then her fingertips loosen and the sheet drifts towards the floor.

“I’m sorry,” It begins, and Miranda will never remember what else was written upon it.

But when the divorce papers arrive, she will sign them.

 

**_Don't leave in silence with no word at all_ **

**_Don't get drunk and slam the door_ **

**_That's no way to end this_ **

**_I know how I want you to say goodbye_ **

**_Find a circus ring with a flying trapeze_ **

**_Tell me on a Sunday please_ **

 

Paris fashion week has been going exceptionally smoothly. The shows have been exquisite and despite Miranda’s initial judgments, she’s gathered many useable ideas for the upcoming issues.

There is a plot to topple her from her throne and she is wise to it. If all goes to schedule however, she will soon be putting a drastic kink in Irv Ravitzs’s plans.

Her life has been about accomplishments and about being the quickest and the smartest, always remaining ten feet in front of anyone else.  She has done well at it and she has only herself to thank.

Professionally she is at the top of her game. Personally, she’s never felt more uneasy.

Her relationship with her latest husband, Stephen, has been rumbling over yet another rough patch. And although they haven’t been together for all that long, she can see the threads beginning to fray at the edges. She has tried to fix things, has tried to explain herself and has tried to apologize for her neglect.

The night before she’d left for Paris had been the beginning of a fight she’d wish she’d fixed before her departure, but hadn’t had the time to do so.

 

\---

 

It had been a quiet night and although she’d gotten home at eleven o’clock, Stephen was still up. When she went into her study she found him sitting in her office chair, a glass tipped to his lips, draining the amber liquid in one long, indulgent sip.

When Stephen drank, it usually meant that she was in for a night of one of two things. And this night apparently was no exception to the rule because when he saw her enter, he unceremoniously slammed the empty snifter on the glass desk.

The noise made her jump and stop to cautiously assess his next course of action. He was unsteady on his feet, but he made his way towards her quickly, putting his large hands onto her slender hips, half for support.

He’d maneuvered her to the desk easily enough, and hadn’t even bothered to remove her blouse or to look at her body with any type of appreciation before fumbling with her skirt. He had gathered it at her hips and unzipped his pants, nudging between her parted her legs.

And then he’d entered her, beginning the series of tired, angry thrusting that would leave her unsatisfied and sore the following day. But he was her husband and he was disappointed and it seemed these days to be the only thing that kept the arguments at bay.

She wrapped her fingers around his neck and his hands held to her lower back as his grunts grew louder and less rhythmic. Her eyes remained open, her gaze focusing on a small smudge of black on the door frame. It looked like a tiny scar on a canvas of white and she concentrated on it as Stephen’s hips began pistoning inside of her.

He shoved himself in a little too deep and she cried out softly in pain, but he mistook it for pleasure and it sent him over the edge, grasping on to the moment of ‘shared’ intimacy like a life preserver in the center of the Pacific ocean.

But when he had pulled away, and zipped his pants back up, he had noticed her lack of an attempt to even fake satisfaction.

And in that moment it was too late. She didn’t have time to try a loving a gesture, or a satisfied sigh before he erupted into a torrent of accusatory sentences marred by a series of expletives and then finally by the slamming of the door.

 

\---

Needless to say, Miranda hasn’t found the phone call a surprise. When she lifts the receiver to her ear, she is prepared for battle and prepared for an act of self-humiliation as she decides how she is going to apologize for her schedule, for her work, for her life.

But Stephen overturns the table and asks for a divorce.

And Miranda realizes that with the simple act of picking up a receiver, she is alone. 

She is alone until a certain dark haired assistant with a beautiful smile and even kinder eyes walks into her world and changes it.

 

**_Don't want to fight day and night_ **

**_Bad enough you're going_ **

**_Don't leave in silence with no word at all_ **

**_Don't get drunk and slam the door_ **

**_That's no way to end this_ **

**_I know how I want you to say goodbye_ **

 

She has never been prepared for the demises of her previous relationships. But she has adapted now.  She knows what to look for. She can tell when a barrier is crossed; when there’s no going back; when the excuses have run out.

And she knows that Andrea isn’t coming back.

They’ve had an argument and Miranda knows her mistake, but she is unwavering. She wants to change things. She wants to take back what she’s said. She wants to run down the rain soaked street after Andrea and apologize.

To her own, bitter resentment, she is glued to the spot. She can feel the cold wind whipping in through the door that remains ajar and though it prickles her skin, she does not move to close it.

She stands, stripped of every last hope for happiness, balancing on the pedestals of her Prada shoes, a reminder of what she has given this up for.

She’s given up everything that matters in life for dyed fragments of leather assembled in Italy. Suddenly it all seems rather meaningless.

The cold air sends a frigid finger up her spine and she feels her hands, as though independent from her body, moving to close the door.

She doesn’t remember getting to the living room, but she finds herself seated on a stretching white settee, pressing a cold glass to her temple. Small beads of condensation transfer to her lily white skin and slowly travel down over the curve of her cheekbone, mixing with a moistness that has escaped from her eyes.

 

**_Don't run off in the pouring rain_ **

**_Don't call me as they call your plane_ **

**_Take the hurt out of all the pain_ **

**_Take me to a park that's covered with trees_ **

**_Tell me on a Sunday please_ **

****

There is a knock at the door on Sunday morning and Miranda crosses towards it, en route from the living room where she spent the night.

When her fingers press down on the door handle and it releases from the catch, she glides it back and fixes the unexpected visitor with a glare. But the glare melts away as quickly as it appears when she locks eyes with the interruption.

Standing on the step with a weak gathering of flowers, clearly ruffled from the heavy rain, is Andrea.

Andrea smiles tentatively, and Miranda notices her eyes are rimmed red from crying. She suspects hers look the same.

Andrea reaches out towards her. Miranda feels the younger woman’s hand close around her wrist and finds she is surprised yet again, but for a very different reason.

Andrea steps through the door way and places the flowers on the table. She is soaking from head to foot and the rain continues to teem down behind her. She slides her hands around Miranda’s waist, dampening the fabric as she pulls the older woman towards her. Miranda feels her lips lifting at the corners as they are pressed to their soft equal.

This time, she isn’t alone. This time, she stayed.

\------------------------

**_The End._ **

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Most of these aren't my characters. I just put them on puppet strings and have my way with them.
> 
> Originally Posted on LiveJournal - February 17th, 2009


End file.
